1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present general inventive concept relate to a power control apparatus to supply power to a fusing heater of an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image forming apparatus, such as a laser printer, forms an image on a printing medium by scanning light onto a photosensitive body charged at a certain voltage to form an electrostatic latent image, developing the electrostatic latent image with toner, i.e., a developing agent, transferring the developed image to the printing medium (paper) and fusing the transferred image. A fusing unit provided to fuse operation fuses an image on the surface of the printing medium by heating the paper to which the image has been transferred to a proper temperature and pressing the paper. To this end, the fusing unit may need to be controlled to heat the printing medium to a temperature suitable for the fusing operation and maintain the temperature during printing. If the fusing unit fails to reach the proper temperature, the quality of the image formed on the printing medium may be degraded. If the temperature of the fusing unit exceeds the proper temperature, malfunction may be caused by overheating.
As direct current (DC) power transmission has recently begun to be implemented due to low carbon and green energy and a smart grid, regions to which DC power is supplied as commercial power instead of alternating current (AC) power have emerged. However, for an image forming apparatus such as a laser printer which performs printing by melting toner at high temperature and fusing the same to a printing medium, an AC power switch arranged in a path of power transfer to a heating element used as a heat source may be controlled only when AC power is applied. Accordingly, in regions to which DC commercial power is supplied, precaution may need to be taken since the AC power switch may be uncontrollable, and thus the heating element may overheat over a target temperature.